Stephen DiDuro

Mostly made by forum member Stephen “Strife” DiDuro, the 16-bit-ish platformer Freedom Planet has finally been released on Steam after a few delays. This game is inspired by Mega Drive games with lovable protagonists like Rocket Knight Adventures, Ristar, and, of course, Sonic the Hedgehog. You can play as three different characters, of which two are playable in the story more. The third character will also get a story mode later on as free DLC. One of those characters is a cat who drives up walls with a motorcycle, bet you can’t find a Youtube video of real-life cat doing that! (But if you can, please link it in the comments below)

Miami is known for quite a lot of things, but a burgeoning event for comic and game aficionados of South Florida, the Florida Supercon, bubbled to one of its biggest shows yet. Invading the Miami Beach Convention Center located a stones throw from South Beach during the Fourth of July weekend, the event featured several game development studios showing their works. Joining the likes of Yacht Club Games’ Shovel Knight and Dennaton Games’ Hotline Miami 2 was a small group under the banner of Galaxy Trail, makers of Freedom Planet.

For those unfamiliar with Freedom Planet, take a moment to consider the halcyon era of the MegaDrive. Taking cues from Sonic The Hedgehog, Sparkster (or Rocket Knight, if you prefer), Ristar, and Pulseman among others, Freedom Planet stars speedster Sash Lilac, the brawler and biker Carol Tea, and the timid but imaginative Milla Basset, on a journey to save the land of Avalice from certain peril. You know, the typical thing that will send heroes out to smack a few baddies in the face.

Given its origins as a Sonic fangame that grew to its own style and found great success not only on Kickstarter but on Steam’s Greenlight service, Galaxy Trail’s presence at Supercon definitely warranted checking in on the game, now that its Steam release of July 19 is just around the corner. There, I met with the lead programmer and creator of the game Stephen “Strife” DiDuro.